Materials and Methods

- Biogeography of Triatominae (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) in Ecuador: Implications for the Design of Control Strategies

For this study, we reviewed available published reports, and the specimens belonging to the subfamily Triatominae deposited at the Invertebrate Museum of the Catholic University of Ecuador, Quito, the Herman Lent and Rodolfo Carcavallo Collections (Laboratório Nacional e Internacional de Referência em Taxonomia de Triatomíneos, Departamento de Entomologia, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), the Natural History Museum, London (UK), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK), the Vozandes Hospital (Quito, Ecuador), and the National Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Quito, Ecuador). Fieldwork and unpublished records were also included in our analysis.

Notes on epidemiological significance of each species were prepared on the basis of published information, unpublished reports, and field observations. For geographical information, we used the guide by Miranda (1995), the "Índice Toponímico" of the Instituto Geográfico Militar (IGM 1978-82, 1982-96), and cartographic material provided by the IGM. Life zones were established following the ecological maps proposed by Cañadas (1983) and Cañadas and Estrada (1978, cf. Dodson & Gentry 1991), based on the life zones described by Holdridge (1967). We included life zones under 2,200 m altitude in the analysis. In the distribution maps (Figure), marks indicate places of capture. Life zones where each species occur are light grey, and we added the outline and number of the life zones representing the potential distribution of each species (areas from where no records exist, but where ecological features are identical to other zones where captures have been made).